


In Effigy

by o2doko



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-13
Updated: 2011-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-15 15:18:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/o2doko/pseuds/o2doko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life in Berk is hard, and they aren't kids anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Effigy

His hands paused momentarily in their work as a log shuddered and cracked in the fire pit, waiting for the midnight shadows to shift and readjust as the disturbed sparks settled.  Resettling himself wouldn’t have been such a bad idea – closer to the light, easier to see – but he worried about disturbing the woman sleeping fitfully in the bed, and so he remained.  Occasionally, the wind outside would throw its shoulder against the rickety wooden door; occasionally, one yellow eye would open a slit across the room and sleepily regard his movements before closing again.  Occasionally, the woman’s breathing would hitch awkwardly on something that wasn’t quite a snore – but he alone amongst the village remained awake, and he’d never felt more alone.

 

Exhaling his hot breath onto his numb fingers, he doggedly put another stitch in place and gave the fabric a sharp tug to test the strength of the thread.  His tired eyes flickered upward to compare the project with its model before dropping again in weary satisfaction.  _If you’re making clothes for the baby,_ Astrid had warned earlier, when he’d arrived with his armload of salvaged scraps – but it wasn’t clothes, and her protests had been tired and half-hearted at best.  Most of what she did was half-hearted these days.

 

The heat of the fire bored into the joint of an ancient branch and popped noisily; he looked up anxiously in time to see Astrid shift once more.  The bruises beneath her eyes were darker than the night shadows brushing her pale throat, and once-golden hair feathered listlessly against the pillow, too thin now to catch the firelight.  Sleeping was an activity she engaged in frequently but not one she’d ever possessed any talent for.  Sleeping conserved strength and pooled heat; in the midst of this savage winter, it had become the prime occupation of all their hours.

 

Even for the dragons.

 

A slit of yellow glimmered out of the darkness again, annoyed and vaguely disapproving – but even Toothless had become listless during these interminable months.  The corner of the house he’d once been entirely too large to occupy now accommodated him with room to spare; the curves of his ribs arched upward, hollow and almost sharp enough to tear skin.  In this light, he looked like some piteously shipwrecked vessel, broken upon the waves of interminable hunger.  Their fates were intertwined – for better or worse.

 

Not everyone still saw it that way, of course.

 

It had taken three new laws and one brutal execution for the new chief to impose upon his desperate clansmen the one and only prevailing ultimatum of his reign: the dragons were their allies, and under no circumstance were they to be killed for food.  He wondered how long the uneasy truce would last.  Some men wasted away, while others simply disappeared – no one commented, but the dragons were hungry, too.  ‘Love’ and ‘friendship’ were summertime sentiments for youths with full stomachs; he could feel his hold on the village waning.

 

His father used to tell him that being a man was about making choices – but no lecture could have ever prepared him for choices like these.

 

Listlessly, he started another stitch into the fabric and managed to prick his finger.  He felt the metal scrape bone, but it hardly drew any blood.  There was no longer any flesh to pierce.  Astrid bravely ate for one while starving for two; he ate nothing, and divided what he wouldn’t consume between her and Toothless.  There were no fish; no birds; no game.  What stubbornness had started, exhaustion would finish – they no longer had the strength nor the resources to make a stand somewhere else. 

 

 _Choices._

 

Tying fast the thread, Hiccup ducked his head and bit it clean.  Hunger made him dizzy, but for the first night in weeks he felt as though his head were clear.  He would not feed his dragon to his child; and despite what some whispered in the village, he would not feed his child to his dragon.  He would leave, and he would bring back food to save them both – or he would die in the attempt. 

 

Rising, he crossed the room to Astrid’s bedside and placed the little doll carefully on the pillow beside her head.  He would leave no effigy of himself to be hated in his stead; but if he failed, that little bit of cloth and stitching might be the only dragon the world had left. 

 

And he couldn’t bear the thought that his child might grow up in a world without dragons.

 

Hiccup left a last kiss for Astrid somewhere in the air above her cheek, tangled up in a whispered promise he hadn’t really intended for her to hear.  He had begun this in love and he would end it in love, and he had to trust that would be enough to make her understand.

 

Toothless certainly didn’t need to be told.  If hunger had made their eyes hollow, starlight would fill them up again.

 

 _Take me,_ Hiccup thought defiantly as they shot upward; _Great Odin … leave them.  Take me._   The darkness crowded in obligingly, and it wasn’t long before the night had swallowed them whole.

  

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm currently accepting commissions; see my [gig page](http://fiverr.com/users/o2doko/gigs/write-an-original-5000-word-story-in-any-genre) for more information.


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